Chaos in the Stars: A Tale of K9's Origin
by RainbowSheltie
Summary: Life as a mercenary isn't easy, nor is the fact that you were created in a lab for subservient purposes. Finding lost siblings, and living in a world where superpowers are common leads to - The Problem - all the shades of grey that follow humanity. SLASH.


_I remember this dream, because the air always smells sweeter. I remember, because the openly expansive fields of wildflowers and of the grass so tall it covered our heads when we ran. Because we always laughed so hard when we fought or played tag or just stared at the shapes in the clouds. Shimori always had the be the one in charge since he was older – and Cross, my youngest brother was always following behind us. It's because I only realize now how perfect we were, how cliché and normal we were that makes me want to take a knife to my wrist and slash it over and over again. _

_Because, even though people see me as a Hero; saving people or helping the city, even if I'm doing some shadowy job on the side they think I do it for my Master's corporation. What would the people of Meridian think, if they knew I wasn't perfect? That maybe, just maybe I want to give up. _

_If I could give up everything I knew to find out if this God they talk about exists – would he finally grant me peace? Never having to wake up again to this chaos and myriad of memories that haunt me... Tell me, would that really be so bad?_

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**Part 1: Homebound**

Summer morning brought in dawning of the sun extremely early, heating up the small condo to the degree of a small oven. A small alarm clock made soft barking noises in sets of six, according to the hour. Unlike most of his species, his Master let him sleep on the bed even though K-9 knew he wouldn't have cared either way. The extra fluff-tacular carpeting installed on the floor equaled a thin mattress pad, though why anyone would want to walk on a mattress pad was beyond his scope of reasoning.

K-9 turned extra slowly towards the floor; sleeping in was forbidden, and besides nothing good ever came of lazing around doing nothing. At least his Master didn't use a normal alarm clock – with his ears, one week of a blaring alarm every morning and he was bound to lose something in his head to either deafness or insanity. The alarm was a small barking dog with volume control; his eyes had been replaced with a rectangle screen that used both Morse code and ever changing time in an evolved form of Braille.

The condo had basically been made of windows, a view, he had been told that beautifully overlook the entire city. Windows or no, at least he wouldn't have neighbors peaking in to see his less then stealer self in the morning – least of which hadn't included any article of clothing. He always had this dream during extremely warm summer days such as this. Master would sleep in for another hour, which gave K-9 more than enough time by himself to recover something that managed to slip away during the night.

His eyes had long ago lost their sight; at no fault to his Master, but his canine half seemed more than willing to give him a sort of bat-like sense of "Invisible object hunting". The sliding door made little sound it automatically opened before him. The joys of sleeping with the head of a worldwide corporation owner, if anything it made the little things in life easy to appreciate once you compared it to the rest of the world. K-9 heard the strong, almost deafening whistle pass by; the noise didn't make him cringe, but encourage it.

Because pain begot pain, or so it went – the temptation to another source of pain to drown out an existing one, whatever it may be. Never had these words been so true as these warm summer mornings. Everything became so clear and vivid. A small, nine year old child laughing happily in his mind made him want to scream. Everywhere he looked, instead of "seeing" the layout of the balcony, he only saw that same, bright field. That day was just as warm as this one. It was just as calm, even the breeze surrounding him down seemed to be the same.

"_I'll always be right here," Cross always said with that certain spunky voice. "It don't matter that your older, because really, let's face it, shall we? You totally can't live without me."_

"_Oh yeah? Prove it," Shimori said with a smirk, "Since I always win at tag, if you can catch me this time then… I'll admit you're right, and give you the top bunk for an entire week."_

K-9 couldn't stop the tears this time. He couldn't ignore his memories, his brother's voices running over and over in his mind. From a distance, he could easily look back at his childhood and laugh at how stupid and "perfect" they were, like some of Master's old sitcoms that used to play on TV.

"Perfect…" Were words that came almost too willingly from his lips. _Perfect, we were… my brothers were perfect, right?_ Crossing though his mind, repeating over and over again; each time brought more pain. It was silly; everything was silly and stupid, fussing over a stupid dream. This wasn't worth getting upset over; other people would laugh if they saw him now, but… He wasn't those other people. He _couldn't_ just get over it and move on. Maybe in some part of his mind, he really didn't want to move on. Maybe, somewhere inside him, he wanted this pain set free – what if he _wanted _people to take pity on him?

The strong, quiet but powerful member of the Nine species; or even a plain old mercenary, how many people would openly pity them? If you're known as a Hero, yeah, your past is something left in the past. Needing the help of no one, saving the day, making other people happier then you is one of sacrifice. _No one understands this concept better,_ K-9 let the words form in his mind.

_Cross gasped in disbelief as he saw his older brother walking towards him. "Oh my, brother! What happened to you?" K-9, now 12 years old, could barely even give a complementary grin for his little brother. He felt Cross's slender hands run across his neck. Surgical scars had scoured their way along his neck, as if they were looking for something they couldn't find. _

"_It's nothing," K-9 struggled with his voice, trying to keep it calm. Cross's face showed signs of worry; after all, he had been gone for a little over a week. "The truth is," he relented; giving up all notions of lying to the only brother he0 had left. "Master said I wasn't well, so… he made me better. If I wear this mask, I don't have breathing problems anymore."_

_K-9 put the breathing mask on, but Cross's reaction, if he had one, was well hidden. He knew he and his little brother had been born with some sort of incurable virus, but he didn't more much more than that. The doctors had told him it attacked his immune system, that it was an extremely rare but evolved form of some virus that plague humans in the past. It was cured then, but this was unexpected and caused the doctors to worry. This, in turn, worried K-9 more than anything – who but the smarted scientist he knew, if they couldn't do anything…_

"_But…" Cross finally said, "This contraption… what they're doing to us… to you, K-9, don't you see? If you let them get rid of this sickness, you'll be nothing more than a puppet. Master will OWN you, ****. You'll be his forever… ****, please!" he started to beg. "Please, run away with me, from here! We'll get away and be happy again! We'll find out where our brother is and live together again like always, ****." _

K-9's throat tightened as his breath forced its way unnaturally out of his body. "My name…" Even those were hard to form, he heard Cross's voice in his head but the name his brother pleaded at him with was shrouded out. Tears crossed his face and openly fell towards the sparse balcony around him. _Maybe, it wouldn't be so bad if I…_the thoughts that formed in his mind didn't get a chance to finish.

His Master had calmly placed his breathing mask back on; he sat cross legged on the balcony floor with K-9 in his arms. K-9 couldn't run away from his problems so easily. That strong, warm hand stroked his hair, the other holding K-9 just below his lower back. All he heard now were his Master's words. "Never leave me, K-9. Don't leave."

"I'll never…" K-9 began, smiling just so as his Master removed his mask; the Master's breath echoed softly against his own pale cheek, moving ever closer. "I'll…"

**To Be Continued**


End file.
